Off-season plan (according to ESPN Insider)

Toronto whiffed on the Chris Bosh contingency plan, and it set the franchise back a couple of years. Year 2 will be better.

For one, the Raptors will have some money to spend. Peja Stojakovic and his $14.5 million will be lifted off the payroll with another $5 million once rhino-rebounder Reggie Evans leaves. What the Raptors really need is to target a legitimate center who can slide Andrea Bargnani to the 3 position where he belongs. Tyson Chandler would be the logical choice there if Mavs owner Mark Cuban uncharacteristically passes on overpaying a center. Otherwise, the Raptors can turn to Nene or Marc Gasol if he hits the market.

Elsewhere, the Raptors have to be happy with the development of Ed Davis, the 21-year-old who finished the last 10 games of the season averaging 13.7 points and 9.1 rebounds. But with that frame, he's not going to do anything to beef up the Raptors' front line, something they need desperately. David West isn't the right direction to go in, but they may talk themselves into spending the money on a big man.

This is them speculating. Sounds like they're oblivious to the fact that Colangelo and/or Triano don't have contracts and have a major road block right now. Different management, different philosophies, different actions. Minor detail.

It is posts like this that cause me to think ESPN sometimes just doesn't bother to cover the Raptors. The thought of Bargnani playing the 3 is completely insane. The biggest complaint is that he isn't effective enough on the defensive end, so of course the natural solution for ESPN is that Bargnani moves to SF, where he will guard the likes of LBJ and KD... ummmm... I think not.

It is posts like this that cause me to think ESPN sometimes just doesn't bother to cover the Raptors. The thought of Bargnani playing the 3 is completely insane. The biggest complaint is that he isn't effective enough on the defensive end, so of course the natural solution for ESPN is that Bargnani moves to SF, where he will guard the likes of LBJ and KD... ummmm... I think not.

I am not so sure they cover anyone other than the Heat as of this year. Garbage station/site now except for (very) minor exceptions.

The ESPN report was written by an intellectually challenged intern just learning how to use cut and paste. Nothing new in an article with old ideas and clearly with no knowledge of the current state of the roster - Amir (23) and ED (21) at the 4 so lets go out and blow $10M per season on a 30 year old David West? W. T. F. ???

*EDIT* Oh yes, and he obviously has no idea how the salary cap works if he is just subtracting salaries from the payroll from the 2010-2011 season. Nothing worse than people getting paid to take a dump on a computer screen and send it out to the cyber-world.

The idea of adding a player who is going to start declining in skills and production (oh yeah, who just tore his ACL) at 30 years of age to a young core that is not going to reach their potential for a couple of more seasons is beyond short-sighted, it is ridiculous.

Also, the little knowledge shown of the CBA is disgraceful for a person who is writing about this stuff for a career.

It was baaad.Half the guys in this forum could..actually they ARE writing better plans for the future with or without Bargnani and by the way they do it for free ...so I don't know...maybe this guy should read a few topics here before sending his "work" for printing/posting whatever it is.

It is posts like this that cause me to think ESPN sometimes just doesn't bother to cover the Raptors. The thought of Bargnani playing the 3 is completely insane. The biggest complaint is that he isn't effective enough on the defensive end, so of course the natural solution for ESPN is that Bargnani moves to SF, where he will guard the likes of LBJ and KD... ummmm... I think not.

only way i see it work is if we have dwight howard on our team. then bargnani plays a 3 role in a similar fashion to rashard lewis in orlando.

I hope BC trades AB and we can move on from all these nonsense that all our defensive woes are due to AB. AB will have a better time some where else and we will finally find out what a scrub of team has BC ensemble for us after 5 years.

I hope BC trades AB and we can move on from all these nonsense that all our defensive woes are due to AB. AB will have a better time some where else and we will finally find out what a scrub of team has BC ensemble for us after 5 years.

Nobody has said this, or believes this. But he is the team's worst defender.

Also:

The Andrea Bargnani Award (Formerly the Darius Songaila Award)– This award goes to the player who has provided his team with the least overall production. I use Wins Produced to determine the winner here. (Minimum 500 minutes)

Toronto’s Andrea Bargnani has been the favorite all season, and in the end, he did not disappoint. With a WP48 of -0.122 he’s “contributed” -6.0 wins in 2,353 minutes. As promised to several disgruntled Raptor fans, this award has now been renamed The Andrea Bargnani Award.

His value to the team is neglible, at best. If he succeeds on another team I wouldn't be surprised at all. I'd bet that he'd be reduced to a role player or 6th man though. The Raptors' management has given him so many chances. It is NOT BC's or Triano's fault that he can't consistently play with intensity.

His value to the team is neglible, at best. If he succeeds on another team I wouldn't be surprised at all. I'd bet that he'd be reduced to a role player or 6th man though. The Raptors' management has given him so many chances. It is NOT BC's or Triano's fault that he can't consistently play with intensity.

I am not going to sit here all summer and discuss this with you or anyone else. The truth will come out next season and we will see what AB can do for another team and where we will go with BC as our GM, Triano as our Coach and Amir Johnson as our leader.

Before this season, when almost 40% of the RR was predicting a playoff for this team, I predicated a 15-25 win game this season and this team was right in the middle.

I predict now that with AB and Jose gone and with BC and Triano is charge, this team will have less than 18 wins next season, Mark my words for it.

By the way, I was looking at Hump man's number for this season, 10 and 10 I guess good coaching does make wonders. How much is he getting paid in compare to Amir Johnson

His value to the team is neglible, at best. If he succeeds on another team I wouldn't be surprised at all. I'd bet that he'd be reduced to a role player or 6th man though. The Raptors' management has given him so many chances. It is NOT BC's or Triano's fault that he can't consistently play with intensity.

I could have sworn I've been saying this all season. Of course there's the argument that he scores 21 ppg!

I dont think were getting dwight howard or anything lol i was just saying thats probably the only way to have bargnani as a 3 on the team is to have dwight at center.

I'm not disagreeing. I've just noticed that when people talk about whatvit would take to allow him to be effective, playing beside Dwight Howard, or a Dwight Howard clone, seems tonalways be the solution. If playing beside Howrad is the only way to be effective, then that's probably a problem. Unless you've actually got Dwight Howard on you team.

It was baaad.Half the guys in this forum could..actually they ARE writing better plans for the future with or without Bargnani and by the way they do it for free ...so I don't know...maybe this guy should read a few topics here before sending his "work" for printing/posting whatever it is.

+1 we write a lot of ridiculous stuff and propose some outlandish scenarios, but we also have GREAT in depth analysis, that is better than anything at the star or sun or on espn.

"We only have one rule on this team. What is that rule? E.L.E. That's right's, E.L.E, and what does E.L.E. stand for? EVERYBODY LOVE EVERYBODY. Right there up on the wall, because this isn't just a basketball team, this is a lifestyle. ~ Jackie Moon